Ill lUlMlilili RAMI. 



Euplocamus melanonotus, BlytK 



VemaClllar Names.— [Muthoora (Bengali), Kirrik (Bhutea), Karrik-pho 

 (Lepcha), Sikhim.] 



HROUGHOUT Sikhim, Native and British, the 

 Black-backed Kalij occurs in suitable localities ; 

 it certainly occurs in the eastern parts of Bhutan, 

 whence I saw specimens shot by officers with the 

 field force employed there in 1865, and it may occur 

 in the easternmost parts of Nepal. How far east it 

 gets in Bhutan is quite uncertain. Farther east, 

 north of the Darrang district, it was E. horsfieldi, the Eastern 

 or Black-breasted Kalij, that was met with by the Daphla force. 



The RANGE of this species is, I think, more restricted than 

 that of the White-crested Kalij. It occurs quite at the foot 

 of the hills, where I have shot it, and I have seen it occasion- 

 ally and heard very often of its occurrence in tea gardens and 

 in our Cinchona Plantations up to nearly 6,000 feet, but I have 

 heard of no one shooting it up in Moonal ground at 8,000 to 

 9,000 feet, and I doubt whether it ascends as high as either of 

 the two preceding species. 



Its favourite haunts are ravines, with thick low cover, and 

 it appears to me to like the cover of tea bushes quite as well as, 

 if not better than, the tangled growth of its native jungles. 



I have had but little personal experience of this species, 

 but my friend, Mr. Gammie, furnishes me with the following 

 excellent account of it : — 



" In Sikhim the Black-backed Kalij is abundant from about 

 1,000 up to 6,000 feet, and it is occasionally found at both lower 

 and higher elevations. It frequents forest and scrub, rarely 

 coming out to cleared land except in the mornings and even- 

 ings to feed, and even then seldom leaving the cover for many 

 yards. 



" At no time of the day is it a shy bird, but in the evenings 

 and early mornings it is almost as tame as a domestic fowl, 

 and, if feeding on the road, will leisurely walk but a few steps 

 out of the way of a passer-by. 



